Squeakross is a cute puzzle game with a decorating twist

I’m usually playing at least two games actively: one of those world-spanning, lore heavy immersive games, and then a relatively fluffy little puzzle game I’ll pick up when I have 10 minutes to kill. Squeakross: Home Squeak Home falls solidly into the latter category, but it’s jam packed with fun little touches that makes it a delight to play through.

The primary gameplay loop is a nonogram or picross, a grid-based puzzle where you color in, or rule out, squares based on a known set of numbers within that grid to make a picture. What sets Squeakross apart is all the stuff that happens outside that basic gameplay type, in a set of gameplay loops designed around decorating. Each puzzle you solve gives you either a piece of decor or a costume item you can use to decorate for your cute little rat friend, and stickers you can use to decorate the main menu. You’ll also get “emails” within the game, some with gameplay hints, and some about real-life rodents, ranging from pet care to rat-related charity.

While you do know what the picross you’re making is meant to depict, there are few times that this is an actual help to solve the logic puzzle.

While I did intentionally make a mistake so you can see the UI in action, the thing on the left is supposed to match the thing on the right. Even squinting with my glasses off, I can’t see the similarity.

Those UI hints are part of why this game has risen to slightly higher prominence during superlatives season. It’s been recognized a few times, including the Indie Game Awards, for its accessibility options, which was a deliberate decision for this small team. In addition to UI hints, your little rat friend will also hang out on your puzzle page, and if you need an assist, they’re happy to help. There’s no timer, no pressure, just chill puzzling vibes.

As you play, you unlock additional rooms to decorate with your solved furnishing, and you unlock more new picrosses as you solve more puzzles. If you don’t like the colorways of the decor or costumes you’ve unlocked, you can redo the puzzle — which rotates the object into an orientation that’s generally more challenging to solve — in order to unlock variant colorways. The decorating gameplay loop has a lot of breadth, but because you have to unlock each piece individually you may find yourself wondering where a specific type of couch or hat might be in the huge catalogue. There are a ton of items, and for a lot of different room types, so it may take more solving than you’d think to unlock everything you need for a specific room, especially since you need to solve puzzles to unlock more puzzles.

It’s kind of hard to complain that the picross game makes you solve picrosses, but if you’re just in it for the decor and less so for the puzzles, you may find it a bit of a slog. Especially since, what even is that picture?

Squeakross: Home Squeak Home is available for PC and macOS on Steam and Itch.io, and on Nintendo Switch.